Belgian Congo

The Belgian Congo was a colony of Belgium in Central Africa that existed from 1908 to 1960. The Belgian Congo was formed when Belgium took official control of the country due to the Congo Free State's abuse of the native inhabitants, and Belgium based its rule on the "colonial trinity" of state, missionary, and commercial interests. The commerical and state interests were often aligned, and the government broke strikes and broke down barriers by the natives in order to assist the companies, and the Congo had a great degree of racial segregation, with whites of any class being treated as superior to the natives. Under the 1940s and 1950s, Belgium sought to make the Congo a "model colony", urbanizing the colony and forming a wage labor force twice the size of any other African colony. In 1960, the Congo achieved independence after years of agitation by Congolese nationalists, but Belgium would continue involvement in the Congo until the Congo Crisis.